THE PERSIAN AND HIS THREE SONS.

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He said: "As I was

6. The second son now spoke. wending on my journey, I one day saw a poor child playing by the margin of a lake; and, just as I rode by, it fell into the water, and was in danger of being drowned. I immediately dismounted from my horse, and, wading into the water, brought it safe to land. All the people of the village where this occurred can bear witness of the deed. Was it not a noble action?"

7. "My son," replied the old man," you did only what was your duty, and you could hardly have left the innocent child to die without making an effort to save it. You, too, have acted well, but not nobly."

8. Then the third son came forward to tell his tale. He said: I had an enemy, who for years has done me much harm and sought to take my life. One evening, during my late journey, I was passing along a dangerous road which ran beside the summit of a steep cliff. As I rode cautiously along, my horse started at sight of something lying in the road. I dismounted to see what it was, and found my enemy lying fast asleep on the very edge of the cliff. The least movement in his sleep, and he must have rolled over, and would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks below. His life was in my hands. I drew him away

from the edge, and then woke him, and told him to go on his way in peace."

9. Then the old Persian cried out, in a transport of joy, "Dear son, the diamond is thine; for it is a noble and a godlike thing to succor an enemy, and to reward evil with good."

EXERCISE.

1. A Persian resolved to divide his goods among his sons.

2. He reserved a small portion to himself.

3. The sons departed, and travelled three months.

4. I might have enriched myself without fear of detection.

5. I gave back the parcel exactly as I had received it.

6. I immediately dismounted from my horse.

7. The people of the village where this occurred can bear witness.

A

SHEPHERD by the side of a brook complainingly sang, in his grief, of his sad and irreparable loss. His pet lamb had lately been drowned in the neighboring river. Having heard the shepherd, the brook thus began to murmur indignantly :

2. Insatiable river! how would it be if thy depths, like mine, were clearly visible to all eyes, and every one could see, in thy most secret recesses, all the victims which thou hast so greedily swallowed up? I think that thou wouldst dive into the earth for shame, and hide thyself in its dark abysses.

3. "Methinks that, if fate gave me such copious waters, I should become an ornament to Nature, and would never hurt even so much as a chicken. How cautiously should my waves roll past every bush, every cottage! My shores would only bless me, and I should bring fresh life to the adjacent valleys and meadows, without robbing them of so much as even a single leaflet. Then, in a word, I should perform my journey in a kindly spirit, nowhere causing misfortune or sorrow, and my waters should flow right down to the sea as pure as silver."

4. So spake the brook, and so it really meant. But what happened? A week had not gone by before a heavy raincloud burst upon a neighboring hill. In its affluence of waters the brook suddenly rivalled the river. But, alas! what has become of the brook's tranquillity? The brook overflows its banks with turbid waters. It seethes; it roars; it flings about masses of soiled foam. It overthrows ancestral oaks; their crashing may be heard afar. And, at last, that very shepherd, on whose account it lately up-. braided the river with such a flow of eloquence, perished in it with all his flock, and of his cottage not even a trace was left behind.

5. How many brooks are there which flow along so smoothly, so peacefully, and murmur so sweetly to the heart, only because they have so little water in them!

Krilof.

XLIX. — THE RETORT.

I.

NE day, a rich man, flushed with pride and wine,

OVE a rich man, fat table, all quite merry,

Conceived it would be vastly fine

To crack a joke upon his secretary.

11.

“Young man,” said he, “by what art, craft, or trade Did your good father earn his livelihood?" “He was a saddler, sir,” the young man said; “And in his line was always reckoned good."

III.

“A saddler, eh? and had you stuffed with Greek,
Instead of teaching you like him to do!
And pray, sir, why did not your father make

A saddler, too, of you?"

At this each flatterer, as in duty bound,

The joke applauded, and the laugh went round.

IV.

At length the secretary, bowing low,

Said, (craving pardon if too free he made,)

Sir, by your leave, I fain would know

Your father's trade."

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'My father's trade?

My father's trade?

V.

Why, sir, but that 's too bad!
Why, blockhead, art thou mad?

My father, sir, was never brought so low :
He was a gentleman, I'd have you know."

VI.

"Indeed! excuse the liberty I take ;

But if your story 's true,

How happened it your father did not make
A gentleman of you?"

USING THE EYES.

L.

USING THE EYES.

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HE difference between men consists, in great measure, in the intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says of the non-observant man, "He goes through the forest and sees no firewood." The wise man's eyes are in his head," says Solomon; “but the fool walketh in darkness.”

2. "Sir," said Johnson, on one occasion, to a fine gentleman, just returned from Italy, "some men will learn more in the Hampstead stage than others in the tour of Europe." It is the mind that sees as well as the eye.

3. Many, before Galileo, had seen a suspended weight swing before their eyes with a measured beat; but he was the first to detect the value of the fact. One of the vergers, in the cathedral at Pisa, after replenishing with oil a lamp which swung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro; and Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of applying it to the measurement of time.

4. Fifty years of study and labor, however, elapsed before he completed the invention of his pendulum, — an invention the importance of which, in the measurement of time, and in astronomical calculations, can scarcely be overvalued.

5. While Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown was occupied in studying the construction of bridges, with the view of contriving one of a cheap description to be thrown across the Tweed, near which he lived, he was walking in his garden one dewy morning, when he saw a tiny spider's-net suspended across his path. The idea immediately occurred to him, that a bridge of iron ropes or chains might be constructed in like manner, and the result was the invention of his Suspension Bridge.

6. So James Watt, when consulted about the mode of carrying water by pipes under the Clyde, along the unequal bed of the river, turned his attention, one day, to the shell